Lucy, What is Love?
by Kouya-kun
Summary: From the earliest of his years, Gabriel has had just one question for his older brother. The best answers always come at the worst times.


**AN:** My friends and I have started a game of sorts where a set of characters are chosen, and we each must write a short story for each of our assigned themes. This is mine.

Characters: Gabriel and Lucifer from the TV series Supernatural

Theme: Angst

* * *

One of the first privileges Dad had given them - his first children, the archangels - after their creation was where they chose to live. At that point, heaven was no more than the combined spaces Dad provided them, and it still had much more to grow before it could be considered anything remarkable. But that was okay. This was their home.

For the most part, though, the children didn't seem to have much creativity when it came to personalization. At least not until they began to grow. But let's back up a little.

Dad - God - had created four of them. Four perfect little beings that entered the universe with grace, a father behind the four of them that was just beside himself with joy and pride. Michael was the oldest, then Lucifer, Raphael, and finally Gabriel, the runt of the litter.

However, it was big brother Lucifer was the first to discover the tricks that came with being an archangel. They started out pointless - little power won't get you much. But the older he got, the more he could do, and just as he breached what human's nowadays would call puberty, he discovered the best trick of all. Time travel. Word spread quickly between the four of them, Sunday-night-dinner's being filled with hushed giggles about fantasies of adventure and the unknown. Suddenly, Michael and Rafael were begging Lucifer to show them how it worked, how to do it, what the secret was, but each time they asked for a demonstration, he would simply say, "Sorry, you're just going to have to learn on your own." Gabriel believed he'd never seen his two older brothers work themselves as hard as they did when they heard Lucifer say this.

Of course, it wasn't a question if Gabriel participated in any of this. After all, he was still the weakest. No one expected him to be able to do anything for a while, and frankly, the older three tended to ignore him, and that's how they'd always be.

At least, that was what the youngest angel had believed for a long time. It was dusk when the family made to return to their own quarters to rest and be alone until the next day. Gabriel had almost made it to his own when suddenly, there was a wall in front of him. He stumbled back, small frame wobbling dangerously as he darted his eyes upward to see why his path had been blocked, and he shrunk back as his gaze was met by that of the eldest brother.

Lucifer smirked, probably amused by how stupidly oblivious his little brother was. Gabriel expected a mocking remark, but it never came. Instead, the taller grabbed Gabriel's small shoulder's, and with ease, spun him around to face the other direction.

"What? What's going on?" the smaller asked nervously as Lucifer began pushing him away from Gabriel's room and toward his own.

"I'm taking you to my room. _I gotta show you something..."_

...

_Much, much later._

...

Gabriel's heart ached as he pulled his brother's sack out from under the mattress for the last time. Once Lucifer was gone, his room would dissolve, maybe become a new heaven for some human's soul, and everything in it would be lost. Gabriel wanted at least this much to keep of him, to be able to take with him when he took his one way trip to Earth. Without his older brother, there was no point in staying in Heaven - listening to the fights would be unbearable. So, he was taking Lucifer's pack and leaving.

The grey canvas bag finally slid out and flopped to the floor, and Gabriel just stared at it for a while, remembering how he used to do this all the time - sneak into this room and take the bag out so he could find them, the chocolate bars that Lucifer would bring back from Earth, and snatch them after he'd eaten his own. He didn't know why, but his brother's always tasted sweeter.

Now that he thought about it, he never did get to steal his brother's winnings from the last time they traveled - it wasn't more than a day after that that the fight between Lucifer and Michael had broken out, and Heaven became a war zone. Maybe...

Gabriel flipped the bag around to find that one square pocket, fabric soft and faded from hands stuffing things inside of it then yanking them out for millenniums, the pocket that still bulged out from a forgot candy bar that held all the innocence of a secret between two brothers. His throat tightened at every thread his finger brushed over as he reached into that pocket, and when his fingers gripped the paper and foil wrapping, his chest jerked with the effort it took for him to hold back the noise of grief.

Pulling the old chocolate bar out from the bag brought a twitch of confusion to cross Gabriel's face. Around the center, where the paper label should have been to display the brand name, was a strip of white paper with "G" scribbled in the middle. Gabriel was quick to tear the paper off and turn it around to read the note that he knew would be there. This time, all his willpower still wasn't enough to control small sob that escaped the youngest archangel's lips.

_Gabriel,_

_I remember when I first started taking you to the future with me, and I remember how hard it was to get you to understand everything I showed you. Back then, none of this chaos existed - humans didn't exist yet, and everything was fine. I regret having to tell you this, but I knew this was all going to happen, I knew it from the first time I went forward and saw that awful species. But I knew you'd love them. I just knew you would, so I took you with me, since you had seemed a little sad lately. Most importantly, I remember: during our last adventure, when we saw those two humans, you asked me, "Lucy? What is 'love'?" I didn't have an answer for you then. But since I'm leaving now, I figured you should know. My little brother, love is when you steal my chocolate from my pack every time...and I still keep it in the same place._

* * *

End note: Pretty short, yes. I'll be posting longer works later once I finish all of them, but for now I'll just be writing shorts like this to get into writing for this fandom.

Feel free to interpret Lucifer's note any way you want to.

Thanks for reading!


End file.
